5 ms·

Of course, as per usual, this will come with entirely unfair and unproductive enforcement. Multinational corporate violators will be left alone or get sent on t

by krono 4y ago

Of course, as per usual, this will come with entirely unfair and unproductive enforcement. Multinational corporate violators will be left alone or get sent on their way with a slap on their wrists, and small one-time hobbyist violators will get prosecuted into dissolution.

ohgodplsno 4y ago
Source: I made it up This is not what has happened with previous regulations. In fact, it's mostly weaponized against US companies, but that's mostly because it's fun and deserved.
- krono 4y ago
  Source I have experienced this with my own business, and saw it happen to other commercial as well as non-commercial entities with previously implemented acts and directives. It's not dissimilar to how the tax authorities always seem to pick small timers for a random extensive audit.
  - DyslexicAtheist 4y ago
    there is nothing in history that could be used as a precedent to predict how this will be enforced. big companies will be in the news very hard for violating these laws. no-name small timers might get a slap on the wrist. but pretty sure fines will be proportional. about time companies are held accountable
    - krono 4y ago
      As previously implied this does not conform to my own observations The idea is good and I'm all for it, but mostly due to said observations I'm not convinced its practical implementation will be very effective at all
  - ikiris 4y ago
    Won't someone think of the poor oppressed small business owners. It's not like they're the cause of half of regulations or anything due to all the scummy small business owners...
    - krono 4y ago
      You are missing the point entirely. Yes think of smaller entities - which are not all commercial, mind you - just don't think of them more often and more thoroughly than the multinational megacorporations that have been racking up endless violations, most of which they are continuously worsening rather than fixing, and are in many cases actively trying to litigate into oblivion.
- unity1001 4y ago
  That is the modus operandi of US regulatory apparatus. Example: Glaxo Smith Klein !knowingly! killed ~150,000 Americans by pushing Avandia for a purpose that it was not approved for. They knew that it would kill a lot of people before they launched it, and they started bribing and coercing medical professionals and institutions, including top names in the US to lie about it. They kept an information siege of lies up until whistleblowers protected by Qui Tam principle blow the cover, protected by the government. The result? GSK paid $4 bn in fines. They made $11 bn in profits from that drug. Net $7 bn even with the fine. ... This is the way regulation works in the US. And this is why the Americans dislike it: Small businesses can never risk that. Big businesses dont need to care about that. Its designed to kill the small for the sake of the big. The Eu used to be different. But judging from how this law is crafted, it might be changing.
  - donnowhy 4y ago
    this is "GOOD BUSINESS" and bad (evil) everything else. oh the humanity
    - unity1001 4y ago
      Yep. One person among the US authority that led this prosecution explained very well what GSK did was in an Al Jazeera documentary. He said: "This wasn't a mistake. This was a good business plan."
madsbuch 4y ago
Do you have any examples of something like this happening in Europe. I understand that Americans tend to think like this. But proportionality works quite well in Europe: Large companies get more scrutiny and higher fines while small companies get a warning.
- krono 4y ago
  Yes (see my reply to your sibling comment 1) but these are not large cases and I'd rather not connect this HN account to my real life activities. All but one of the cases ended in a warning, but it does show the increased scrutiny that smaller entities seem to enjoy. Edit: just to clarify me or my business were not directly involved with all those cases, but in the one that we were, it was something we had simply overlooked with regards to GDPR and all was good immediately when the auditor determined we had resolved the problem 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35012128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35012128
- unity1001 4y ago
  Not so since GDPR. GDPR is enforced at every level, including the individual. Whereas 10% of the global revenue of a megacorp only upsets the shareholders a little without ever risking the megacorps power, it can literally bankrupt or starve individuals and small businesses, most of which operate with thin margins. https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ This trend is similar to how the megacorps block out competition in the US by killing small businesses and making it very difficult to engage in economic or engineering activity through the regulations they sponsor. This law in particular seems to be the product of the private German interests which at the moment dominate the Euparl. So, yeah, its happening in Europe now too.
  - cccbbbaaa 4y ago
    Per your link, proportionality seems to be working. Big fines are directed towards big companies (cf. Fines Statistics). For individuals (“private person” or “private individual”), it seems they mostly are fined 3-digits amounts, with some in the 4-digits, and 3 at 10-11k.
PoignardAzur 4y ago
That's not how regulations work. Big corporations are targeted first, because they're big obvious targets and have auditable paper trails. Small-time hobbyists are the ones who fly under the radar.
- krono 4y ago
  The distribution of consequences rather than discovery of violations is what I expressed my cynicism about.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

by krono 4y ago

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Source: I made it up This is not what has happened with previous regulations. In fact, it's mostly weaponized against US companies, but that's mostly because it's fun and deserved.

krono 4y ago
Source I have experienced this with my own business, and saw it happen to other commercial as well as non-commercial entities with previously implemented acts and directives. It's not dissimilar to how the tax authorities always seem to pick small timers for a random extensive audit.
- DyslexicAtheist 4y ago
  there is nothing in history that could be used as a precedent to predict how this will be enforced. big companies will be in the news very hard for violating these laws. no-name small timers might get a slap on the wrist. but pretty sure fines will be proportional. about time companies are held accountable
  - krono 4y ago
    As previously implied this does not conform to my own observations The idea is good and I'm all for it, but mostly due to said observations I'm not convinced its practical implementation will be very effective at all
- ikiris 4y ago
  Won't someone think of the poor oppressed small business owners. It's not like they're the cause of half of regulations or anything due to all the scummy small business owners...
  - krono 4y ago
    You are missing the point entirely. Yes think of smaller entities - which are not all commercial, mind you - just don't think of them more often and more thoroughly than the multinational megacorporations that have been racking up endless violations, most of which they are continuously worsening rather than fixing, and are in many cases actively trying to litigate into oblivion.
unity1001 4y ago
That is the modus operandi of US regulatory apparatus. Example: Glaxo Smith Klein !knowingly! killed ~150,000 Americans by pushing Avandia for a purpose that it was not approved for. They knew that it would kill a lot of people before they launched it, and they started bribing and coercing medical professionals and institutions, including top names in the US to lie about it. They kept an information siege of lies up until whistleblowers protected by Qui Tam principle blow the cover, protected by the government. The result? GSK paid $4 bn in fines. They made $11 bn in profits from that drug. Net $7 bn even with the fine. ... This is the way regulation works in the US. And this is why the Americans dislike it: Small businesses can never risk that. Big businesses dont need to care about that. Its designed to kill the small for the sake of the big. The Eu used to be different. But judging from how this law is crafted, it might be changing.
- donnowhy 4y ago
  this is "GOOD BUSINESS" and bad (evil) everything else. oh the humanity
  - unity1001 4y ago
    Yep. One person among the US authority that led this prosecution explained very well what GSK did was in an Al Jazeera documentary. He said: "This wasn't a mistake. This was a good business plan."

madsbuch 4y ago

Do you have any examples of something like this happening in Europe. I understand that Americans tend to think like this. But proportionality works quite well in Europe: Large companies get more scrutiny and higher fines while small companies get a warning.

krono 4y ago
Yes (see my reply to your sibling comment 1) but these are not large cases and I'd rather not connect this HN account to my real life activities. All but one of the cases ended in a warning, but it does show the increased scrutiny that smaller entities seem to enjoy. Edit: just to clarify me or my business were not directly involved with all those cases, but in the one that we were, it was something we had simply overlooked with regards to GDPR and all was good immediately when the auditor determined we had resolved the problem 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35012128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35012128
unity1001 4y ago
Not so since GDPR. GDPR is enforced at every level, including the individual. Whereas 10% of the global revenue of a megacorp only upsets the shareholders a little without ever risking the megacorps power, it can literally bankrupt or starve individuals and small businesses, most of which operate with thin margins. https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ This trend is similar to how the megacorps block out competition in the US by killing small businesses and making it very difficult to engage in economic or engineering activity through the regulations they sponsor. This law in particular seems to be the product of the private German interests which at the moment dominate the Euparl. So, yeah, its happening in Europe now too.
- cccbbbaaa 4y ago
  Per your link, proportionality seems to be working. Big fines are directed towards big companies (cf. Fines Statistics). For individuals (“private person” or “private individual”), it seems they mostly are fined 3-digits amounts, with some in the 4-digits, and 3 at 10-11k.

PoignardAzur 4y ago

That's not how regulations work. Big corporations are targeted first, because they're big obvious targets and have auditable paper trails. Small-time hobbyists are the ones who fly under the radar.

krono 4y ago
The distribution of consequences rather than discovery of violations is what I expressed my cynicism about.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]